The way I see it, \" spirituality\" refers to any sort of belief that cannot be empirically validated. i.e. made up. When one of these belief systems becomes politicised then it becomes a religion. A means of political, social, military and economic CONTROL.

I pity the US citizens who have been robbed of democracy by the mobilization of powerful religious groups, especially as you\'ve been lumbered with Dubya because of it!

It\'s irrational to suppose the existence of magical beings, when there\'s an alternate theory that dosen\'t require them to exist (Occam\'s razor anyone?).

But don\'t take my word for when there\'s world famous biologist (and personal hero) Richard Dawkins on the case.Here here & here

These religious threads have been fun to read and I\'m totally inspired to continue working on my religious RPG.

Clerics: My God\'s bigger than your God

I used to be a semi-practising agnostic but now I\'m founding my own religion worshipping Uber-God (tm). I call it Theological Rationalism. Eternal salvation guaranteed or your money back!

Godot ain\'t coming.

Peace out you heathens ;-)

JoE
]]>Sun, 01 Oct 2006 16:32:49 -0400Picky-choosy religion, 3 views: Sydney Freedberg at 2006-09-20 17:55:03http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=248#8215
And to acknowledge something you said many posts back: Sydney, your assertion that \"The Judaic-Christian-Islamic tradition in particular offers the answer, \'Okay, the universe is over, now we can start the really good stuff.\'\" is twaddle.

Fair catch; I threw \"Judaic\" in there sloppily. It\'s not a Judaic answer by any means; it\'s not even a good description of the Christian-Islamic answer. If people will allow me to rephrase:

The Christian-Islamic tradition in particular offers the answer, \"If you thought this world was cool, in spite of entropy, death, cruelty, and general human unhappiness, wait \'till you see the next one!\"
]]>Wed, 20 Sep 2006 17:55:03 -0400Picky-choosy religion, 3 views: NinJ at 2006-09-20 04:36:56http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=248#8213
and exotic \"All is one\" mystics.

But!

If one (I\'m not really talking about you, Ralph, but more about Sydney, and a little bit about Eero) is going to make comments about \"religion\" or certainly about \"Judaeo-Christian\" somethingorother, it\'s willfully ignorant to impose one\'s understanding on others\' culture.

To state something merely takes the will to assert.

Asking a question takes nobility.
]]>Wed, 20 Sep 2006 04:36:56 -0400Picky-choosy religion, 3 views: Valamir at 2006-09-20 03:59:57http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=248#8212
There\'s alot of sheer marketing involved. You can\'t swing a cat in most towns without hitting half a dozen different churches. Drive to work and pass several churches with big signs out front. Church league softball, TV preachers (and even nuns), door to door evangelists, bibles in hotel rooms. In the absence of similar bombardment its not really that surprising that most people aren\'t aware there is similar variety in Judaism.

]]>Wed, 20 Sep 2006 03:59:57 -0400Picky-choosy religion, 3 views: NinJ at 2006-09-20 01:37:19http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=248#8211
That said, the understanding that you\'re talking about stems from an assumption that Jews are separate from the modern world, that the culture is some sort of living fossil. Between Madonna\'s \"I\'m a Kabbalist\" horseshit and a general ignorance, it\'s like being a Navajo, you know? Judaism isn\'t something that happened and is over, just like there are still people who are Navajo who do modern stuff, just like you. We and they have different histories from each other and from everyone else, but history is not the sum total of our existence or theirs; we live in the 21st century, too. It belongs to us as much as it belongs to anyone else.
]]>Wed, 20 Sep 2006 01:37:19 -0400Picky-choosy religion, 3 views: Valamir at 2006-09-19 20:16:58http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=248#8210
As for not considering the differences interesting...heck...I consider this stuff fascinating as if it weren\'t obvious already. My Jewish history only goes through the late Medieval period and Maimonides so the recent stuff hasn\'t been on my radar.

]]>Tue, 19 Sep 2006 20:16:58 -0400Picky-choosy religion, 3 views: NinJ at 2006-09-19 19:46:49http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=248#8206
Its important to realize that, while today Judaism seems rather monolithic, with the only difference being how closely one follows the laws, in Jesus\'s time there were dozens and dozens of Jewish sects.

Come on, man. Judaism is now and has been (as of Babylonian Exodus) of tremendous variety. The nature of following the law is how the Orthodoxy likes to portray it, but in fact, the Jewish landscape is tremendously varied. The Lubavitch believe in the Moshiach who died in 1994. The Reconstructionists are creating ritual in a manner similar to the UU. The Reform started in the 18th century as an assimilationist movement trying to match the practice to Lutheranism and now most concerned with personal and passionate prayer and political activism. The Chasidim began in the 18th century as ecstatic mystics and are now considered an orthodoxy, while the Orthodox who started in the 19th century as modern response to the other movements going on at the time consider adherence to law to be the paramount element of Jewish life.

I\'ll tell you what: put me next to a Lubavitch dude and see how long it takes you to figure out serious theological and philosophical differences. (Hint: My mom wasn\'t Jewish when I was born. Another hint: I think the Universe is billions of years old.)

Hmmm...perhaps a bit more history would be valuable. Vincent if this is totally of no interest let me know...or feel free to give it its own thread or whatever.

Its important to realize that, while today Judaism seems rather monolithic, with the only difference being how closely one follows the laws, in Jesus\'s time there were dozens and dozens of Jewish sects. Some of the more famous to Christians are the Essenes and Maccabees. But there were tons. MANY of them actually incorporated Jesus\'s teachings during and after his life. The most famous of these would be the Ebionites (sp?) which centered around Jesus\'s brother James and his family after Jesus\'s death.

Of all of the various flavors of Judaism of the time, the largest and most influencial were the Pharisees and Sadducees. In fact, if you\'re a Christian you probably know those two as the persecutors of Jesus and almost always hear the two linked together. That\'s not really true and is another gift to us from Paul.

The Sadducees were the main power of the Temple in Jerusalem. They represented the established \"main stream\" Jewish power base and collaborated with the Romans in order to maintain and preserve their cultural identity. In exchange they were expected to keep the rabble rousers in line and out of the Roman\'s hair. During this time there were LOTS of rabble rousers (of which from their perspective, Jesus was just another wild eyed prophet from the wilderness).

The Pharisees were a sect of scholars who believe that God\'s law went well beyond just what was written and began a tradition of interpreting what was written in order to apply it to daily life. The Pharisees operated a number of schools in and around Jerusalem where they taught \"wisdom, writing, and debating\".

Paul was a Pharisee. Whether he was a full on Pharisee or just a guy who attended one of the schools for awhile depends on which version of his biography you like best. Paul ultimately went to work for the high priest of the temple (a Sadducee) as a servant / member of the Temple Guard (the guard being the group charged with suppressing the rabble rousers).

Chronologically, its highly likely that Paul would have been a temple guard at the time of Jesus\'s arrest. Its possible that their paths may have crossed. Such an occurance may help explain why Paul\'s version of Christianity focused so heavily on Jesus\'s death while the teachings of James and Peter and the Ebionites focused so highly on his life.

At any rate Paul eventually had a falling out with the Pharisees over matters of doctrine. The Pharisees were highly anti-gentile and very dedicated to enforcing Jewish Law...including circumcision...a big one. Paul, on the other hand, was all about converting the gentiles (to JUDAISM...not \"Christianity\" which didn\'t exist at the time), and recognized quite practically that the gentiles would be far easier to convert if you weren\'t attacking their penii with a sharp knife. They went their seperate ways and Paul, in typical Paul fashion, bore a grudge. He demonized the Pharisees in his letters and this is largely why today we tend to lump the Pharisees in with the Sadducees as enemies of Jesus.

In reality, there\'s a very good possibility that Jesus himself was a Pharisee, or at least studied in their schools. Jesus was also known to refer to Gentiles as \"dogs\" a common Pharisee designation. If he wasn\'t himself, its almost certain that many of those who flocked to hear him teach were. The actual teachings of Jesus were very compatible with the teachings of the Pharisees. Even Luke, in the Book of Acts is forced to admitt that it was a Pharisee who was among the strongest defenders of the \"Way\", as it was known at the time.

But its key here to remember what order the New Testament was actually written in. Chronologically the Gospels tell about the life of Jesus BEFORE Paul\'s missionary work. But in reality they were written long AFTER Paul\'s letters and long after Paul had put his stamp on things. Luke himself was a student of and big promotor of Paul. So alot of the stuff that made its way into the Gospels (such as Jesus\'s rivalry with the Pharisees and his own family) was inserted there by folks indoctinated by Paul who had had a falling out with both the Pharisees and the Ebionites. Similarly the passages that have been interpreted as Jesus bringing God to all people, not just the Jews, was likely also inserted in a similar manner in support of Paul\'s own mission work.

Ok, so if Paul and his followers were essentially just another flavor of Judaism in a SEA of flavors of Judaism. And if Paul\'s flavor wasn\'t even unique in featuring the message of Jesus as part of it...How come Paul\'s flavor gave birth to one of the world\'s great religions and most folks have never even heard of the Ebionites.

3 reasons:

First: Paul was widely traveled and well education. His letters can be held up as masterpieces of classical literature and arguement. In a day before the Age of Enlightenment where people were far more influenced by myth building than reason, Paul created a compelling mythology that appealed to the masses in a way that the Ebionites who portrayed Jesus as a man they all knew personally just couldn\'t compete with.

Second: one of the most important events in ancient history occured in 64AD (after Paul had died) the burning of Rome. Yes, this is the event of \"Nero fiddles while Rome burns\" fame. In reality Nero worked very hard against the fire, even joining the fire brigades himself. Before he went mad he was quite a good leader...but that\'s a digression.

To understand the importance of this event to Christianity you have to understand its importance as a world event. Rome was a city of 2 million people, half of them slaves (yes, this was the era of bread and circuses to keep the masses happy). 2 million people at that time in history was far far larger a city (relatively) in both size and importance than New York City is today. That\'s 2 million people in a time with no skyscrapers, no airconditioning, no refrigeration, and no modern conveniences of any kind...its a big honking deal.

3/4s of the city burned to the ground. 75% of the single most important city in the western world destroyed. Look at how our nation was galvinized by 9/11 and the toppling of a couple of buildings. How much more devastating is losing not just 2 buildings but three forths of the entire city. That\'s a BIG BIG deal. We\'re talking first century Front Page News here.

So where do the \"Christians\" come in. Well someone had to be blamed. And this obscure Jewish sect made for a perfect scape goat.

We should note that in the first century, Jews were actually a fairly significant people in the Roman Empire. As many as 1/10 of the total population of the Empire was Jewish and many more were fascinated by and dabbled in the monotheistic teachings of the Jews. Apparently the Jews were enjoying something of \"Fad\" status at the time. Even Nero\'s wife was into it along with many prominent Romans.

So clearly Nero couldn\'t just blame the Jews...the Jews had powerful friends. But this obscure sect of Jews...that even the mainstream Jews hated (thanks to Paul)...they had no patrons of consequence at all. No one would care, no enemies would be created by prosecuting them. They were about as nobody as nobody could be.

Interestingly...they very well may have actually BEEN responsible for the fire. See the fire started in the ramshackle wooden shops and stalls in the Forum...just the kind of place where the early Christians would have been doing business The early followers of Paul were largely drawn from the merchant class, Paul\'s churches being founded in all of the leading commercial centers in the Eastern Mediterranean. So its quite possible that in a \"cow kicking over the lantern\" kind of event it really was a Christian who burned down Rome.

Thing is, Roman law didn\'t distinguish between accidental fire and intentional fire (both were arson, punishable by death)...for good reason given how dangerous fire was.

Now throughout human history, executions for crime have been done publically to serve as an example. Whether its the gallows of the old west, the guillotine in revolutionary Paris, or the iron cages full of convicted pirates; public spectacle surrounding executions was an important legal lesson to the people.

But this is Rome. A Rome that through the games had been so desensitized to violence that no mere public execution would do. Plus this was the greatest catastrophe in the history of the Empire...vengeance needed to be much bigger. Christians were stuffed inside of animal carcasses and fed to the Lions in the Circus. Even more infamously, they were put inside of leather body suits, coated with pitch and used as human torches to illuminate dinner parties in Nero\'s private gardens. Yes...giant flaming human tiki torches...kind of puts our treatment of Iraqi prisoners in a bit of perspective, don\'t it.

Here\'s another little interesting tidbit...the gardens where all those Christian\'s were burned up...the Vatican...yup. There\'s a reason why the Church once it came to power centuries later set up shop in the Vatican...THAT\'S how long the memory of this event lasted.

Now here\'s where it gets really GOOD. It was this event that popularized the term \"Christian\". Before this there was no such thing as a \"Christian\". The word may have been used (although there are some who say it was coined by Nero) but it had never been universally applied to a group of people identified by a common religion. Nope...there were no \"Christians\" until 64AD. After 64 AD the entire world knew them as the guys who got turned into human torches for torching Rome.

So...reason number two why Paul\'s little splinter sect of Jews lasted while the rest faded away...Nero made them famous...and gave them a world spanning identity. No longer was there a little group in Ephesus called the Ephesians and a little group in Galatia called the Galatians...now they were all Christians.

Tragedy creates community...and this single event more than any other turned the wide flung churches Paul had founded into a community that thought of themselves as a body. But it was still a JEWISH body. Paul, afterall, died a Jew just as Jesus had.

Third: a few years later the Romans raze Jerusalem to the ground. 70AD...not a stone was left standing on another stone...with a couple of exceptions like the now legendary wall of the temple. Finally Rome had had enough. The Sadducees had failed, time to do things the Roman way.

Most people don\'t realize that the Romans built a brand new city on top of the ruins and gave it a snazzy Roman name. Jerusalem as a center of the Jewish faith...gone...obliterated. And along with them most all of the Jewish sects.

Sadducees...totally gone.
Ebionites...gone...they had been centered in Jerusalem.
Most of the other rabble rousing sects were either hunted down, or went underground where they simply petered out.

So who survived?
...well...the Pharisees did. The Pharisees, and their compelling message of applying God\'s will to daily life evolved into the rabbinical tradition from which modern Judaism derives. Their emphasis on religious study and interpretation would form the foundation of a new tradition of scriptural commentary.

And...Paul\'s rag tag band of Jews survived...largely because, since he preached to the Gentiles, their churches were already scattered across the Mediterranean and not dependent on Jerusalem at all. With the power base of Judaism gone it wasn\'t long before this fringe Jewish sect completed its transition into a completely stand alone religion.

A religion founded by Paul...Paul who demonized the Pharisees because they disagreed with him on matters of doctrine...Pharisees who became the direct antecedent of modern Judaism...initiating 2000 years of wonderful relations between Christianity and Judaism. Jesus was a Jew. Jesus\'s followers were Jews. So how did Christianity evolve to hate Jews? Paul laid that foundation. Paul\'s followers made sure that his message got inserted into the Gospels which were largely written after Paul. Thanks, Paul.
]]>Tue, 19 Sep 2006 14:43:43 -0400Picky-choosy religion, 3 views: Sydney Freedberg at 2006-09-18 13:57:30http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=248#8162
On the \"in defense of Saint Paul\" note, though, let me emphasize the basic fact that, until Emperor Constantine (300 something AD) Christians not only lacked the power to persecute others, but were in fact frequently persecuted and driven underground themselves. Certainly Saul of Tarsus (Paul\'s name before conversion) was a kind of religious policeman for the corrupt Temple hierarchy, very much on the line of \"disagree with me and I\'ll kill you\"; equally certainly, he gave up that power when he converted, and went from being secret policeman to dissident.

I honestly can\'t think of any passage in the letters of Paul that advises persecution of non-Christians, which doesn\'t necessarily mean he was particularly tolerant, but which does make perfect sense given that he was writing practical advice to congregations around the Roman world (many of which he\'d founded) at a time when none of those congregations had the power to persecute, and all of them risked persecution.

Now, of course, I may be forgetting a passage -- references welcome! But I\'d advise people, myself include to read (re-read) Paul: If you bear with the sometimes gleefully convoluted phrasing (Torah scholar + Hellenistic philosophy = brain hurty), there\'s a great deal of love and compassion there.
]]>Mon, 18 Sep 2006 13:57:30 -0400Picky-choosy religion, 3 views: Valamir at 2006-09-16 05:17:55http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=248#8157
Whose Bible is It? by Pelikan is another good source for the history of the scripture

On the topic of Paul...

First, Paul never knew Jesus. He converted after Jesus was already dead. Everything he knew about Christ he picked up second hand...filtered through his own personal history and background.

Second, Paul was a Hellenized Jew from Greek Anatolia (Turkey). He was a Roman Citizen. That meant that while he and his family were devout Jews, he was culturally Romanized. Roman culture at the time was HIGHLY patriarchal and authoritarian. A Roman father had the legal right to kill his wife and children...he was, after all, the master of the household. This was the sort of culture that Paul was familiar with and it colored his perception of \"God the Father\" right from the outset.

Third, Paul\'s early career was as a hitman for the Jewish hierarchy and Roman authorities in persecuting this new cult of Jesus\' followers... He\'s known to have participated in at least one stoning of an early evangelical in Jerusalem. That\'s the kind of person Paul was. \"Disagree with me and I\'ll kill you\". That was Paul. He may have converted and honestly embraced the teachings of Christ but he carried much of that sentiment with him. His anger and hostility towards people who wouldn\'t do things his way is threaded throughout all of his letters.

Fourth: Paul pretty much invented Christianity as a church. It would not be much of a stretch to say that without Paul there would be no Christian church at all. Jesus was Jewish reformer. He didn\'t set out to found a new religion. He set out to topple the corruption at the top of the Jewish hierarchy and return to a simpler, purer JEWISH relationship with God. His early followers were Jews, they thought of themselves as Jews, they preached to Jews, sought to reform Judaism, and lived and died as Jews. It was Paul who invented Christianity as its own religion seperate and apart from Judaism. It was Paul who took this new religion to the \"gentiles\" throughout the Hellenistic world of the Eastern Mediterranean. It was Paul who laid the foundation and formed the model for all the flavors of Christianity to come.

It was Paul who Romanized Jesus.

Now I love the Romans. They were impressive, culturally sophisticated, bad asses. Romans rocked. Reading the history of Julius Caeser conquering Gaul is some cool shit.

But they were assholes.

They were not a people of peace, love, tolerance, and respect for your fellow man. They were a people of slaves, brutality, and warmongering who thought nothing of feeding people to lions for amusement. Their entire society was based on oppressing others and keeping the people pacified with bread and circuses. Now don\'t me wrong...I\'m all for a good gladitorial game and sending some legions out to crack some heads...but that doesn\'t make them a good model to base a religion around.

Paul was a Roman, and he brought Roman sensibilities to the church he founded, and in so doing did irreperable harm to the message of Christ.

I can only imagine what a Christian church founded by James and Peter without Paul would look like today. Who knows...maybe without Paul\'s dedication and ambition the whole thing would have fizzled out in a couple of generations and Jesus would be long forgotten. But in any case, it certainly would have been a very different looking church.

For a pretty even handed treatment of Paul (i.e. who Paul was without my anti-Paul editorializing) see the aptly named Paul by Wilson
]]>Sat, 16 Sep 2006 05:17:55 -0400Picky-choosy religion, 3 views: Valamir at 2006-09-16 05:08:16http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=248#8156
Actually, I\'m personally interested in getting intlo the history;

By the same token, I\'d like to hear more from Ralph. Specifically, Ralph, while I can dig most of what you say, I\'m skeptical about the idea of there being no precedent for \"Scripture as unerrant truth\" prior to the Protestant Reformation.\"

Incidentally, any sources for further reading that Ralph, Syndey, or anybody, really, can provide would be great, specifically on topics like \"Psst--they didn\'t even BELIEVE in inerrancy \'til Luther!\"

Well, I\'ll see what I can do.

On the subject of the bible as the unerring word of God we need to hit up a little more history. The earliest use of written anything in the early church began around 50AD with the epistles (letters) of church founders to their scattered congregations...Paul\'s letters being the best known. Those letters referred to Scripture and following scripture but what they were referring to was actually the Hebrew bible (i.e. what would become known as the \"old testament\") in an effort to demonstrate how their teachings were in line with the old prophecies.

The Gospels didn\'t gain status as something even worthy of being quoted or held up as evidence until well into the second century. Remember, the Hellenistic world based its arguements heavily on citing authority and it was a good century plus after Christ that the writings of the apostles were considered authoritative enough to base an arguement on. Clearly then if there was doubt as to whether the books could be called on as an authority in a logical arguement there was no thought at the time of them being the unerring word of God.

The \"new testament\" didn\'t even begin to be assembled as a collection of authoritative works until the third century and it took another hundred years before the shape of what we typically think of as the books of the New Testament were accepted as canon. Erasmus did the heavy lifting of assembling the \"canonical\" works in the early 300s with the blessing and approval of Emperor Constantine, but the church in Rome didn\'t accept the list until 405. So basically for the first 400 years the church couldn\'t even agree on what writings were and weren\'t worthy of being canon...let alone that any could be the unerring word of God.

A good general history of the bible from the old testament scriptures through the writings of Paul, the assembling of the canon, the manuscripts of the middle ages, the rise of the humanists in the renaissance, the reformation, and on through modern biblical science is The Bible Through the Ages 1996 ed. Huber. Its a 30,000 basic survey, but its a good start and has a decent bibliography.

If you want to dig deeper into the history and politics of what became canon and what became heresy Lost Christianities and Lost Scriptures both by Ehrman are great sources. There\'s alot of fun stuff in there like how certain scriptures were rejected because of the feature role they gave women and other goodies.

The bible went from the Hebrew, through the Greek and into the Latin, but as anyone who\'s used Babelfish or Google Translator knows you can\'t simply map words over 1 for 1 and have them make sense. A translation meant figuring out what the actual meaning of the original text was and then determining how to phrase that in the new language so that it kept the same meaning even if it didn\'t use exactly the same words. Of course the success of that depended alot on the abilities of the translator, the quality of the source material, and was of course colored by the politics and theological debates of the day.

Misquoting Jesus another Ehrman book (basically all three represent one large study broken up into three volumes) goes into a lot of specifics on the type of errors that cropped in through the translation and copying process including examples of several verses that were changed to adhere more closely to the doctrine of the day or to bring the different versions of the same stories found in the gospels closer together. There are even surviving manuscripts where the copiest wrote curses in the margin against any future copiest who would dare alter the text...a testament to how common such alterations were...and ultimately about as effective as the curses on Egyptian tombs against looters.

The Catholic Church was well aware of these problems and issues with the text and knew full well that lay readers, unfamiliar with the history of the translations and the tremendous volumes of theological debate that underlay church doctrine could well be led astray by reading any single version and thinking it was THE version. A knowledgeable theologian had access to several versions and dozens of scrolls of commentary written by other scholars commenting on the disagreeing texts. But someone with access to only 1 version who didn\'t have the advantage of a life time of theological study could well come to the wrong conclusions.

This wasn\'t as much of a problem when the bible was available only in Latin. The church would from time to time have to deal with an individual priest whose preaching was deemed heretical, but it was relatively easy to control.

The problem got enormously more complicated at the end of the 12th century when vernacular translations became common. Most monks (who despite the above discussion were the most qualified to handle copying of manuscripts and the most capable of dealing with conflicting texts) refused to translate into the vernacular (any one who\'s read Umberto Eco\'s novel Name of the Rose will recognize some of the debates on this topic). This meant that many of the vernacular texts were translated by lay people, whose scholarship was even more questionable. Combine this with the penitent movement and the poverty movement which attracted some pretty extreme folks (like the flagellants) and soon every wacko who could get his hands on a bible was preaching the word in a variety of really strange flavors, and gathering followers.

It got so bad at one point that the church actually outlawed lay ownership of bibles in any translation in an effort to keep flawed texts out of the hands of people who lacked the background to understand what they were reading.

That was the level of authority the Catholic Church gave the scripture. Yes it was holy, yes it was the word of God, but it was the word of God as written by the hands of men. Men who were flawed, and so the words they wrote were flawed. Scripture was the holy word of God...but it had to be interpretted and studied and conveyed by those with the background to understand it.

In a way its sort of like like listening to a Creationist talk about Evolution. They understand so little about what evolution says, that any knowledgable biologist cringes at the ridiculousness of their claims. Thats kind of how the Catholic church thought of these vernacular bibles. These preachers understand so little about the bible and its history that they cringed at the ridiculousness of their claims.

It was into that environment that Luther in 1500-something did his whole \"we don\'t need priests we have the direct word of God right here in the bible\" thing...making his own translation of the bible featuring what he thought the important emphasis should be.

Given the long history of dealing with wackos with a bible its hardly surprising that the Catholic Church condemned him as a heretic and sent Germany into a never ending series of religious wars lasting for centuries. It is a testament to the Catholic church of the day that the reformation spawned a counter reformation; where the Church realized that it was its own corruption that gave these heresies justification and set about trying to put its own house in order in response to many of its opponent\'s legitimate accusations.

Enter the modern evangelical protestant with their claims of the bible as the true and unerring word of God...despite the \"flavor of the month\" translations appearing on book store shelves (some of which make the old \"Good News\" version look down right traditional) and those of us who understand the need for reason combined with faith and have a grasp of church history are left scratching our heads wondering WTF are these yahoos thinking...?
]]>Sat, 16 Sep 2006 05:08:16 -0400Picky-choosy religion, 3 views: Sydney Freedberg at 2006-09-13 12:15:49http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=248#8108
[Why] worship a being who cared less, just because it had more power?

Because it can also offer you more goodness than any individual human being.

That\'s just the short answer, of course. The slightly more complete answer follows.

First:

I\'m not particularly interested in \"worship\" -- that word has far too many ambiguous meanings in our language, and you\'ll notice I haven\'t used it so far (I think so, at least: Please point me to any instance where I have). I don\'t think God particularly craves being \"worshipped\"; I do think He wants to be loved, and He wants us to be happy, because He loves us.

What I am interested in is being open to the goodness of God. The rituals of communal worship help me and many other people in that; prayer helps; study of scripture helps; music helps -- for me, music helps a lot. But all those are aids to salvation, not salvation itself.

Second:

God \"cares less\"? Even if you assume that He has indeed decided to inflict suffering on us for reasons we don\'t understand (and remember that I am not confident of any answer to the \"problem of evil\"), that does not mean He \"cares less.\" He cared enough to be born, live, die, and crawl back from death, after all. It is possible to hurt someone you love and still care tremendously about them -- look at almost any family.

Third:

We don\'t know why there is evil in a universe created by a loving God. We just don\'t. I\'ve never seen a satisfactory answer. But until we get a satisfactory answer, there are three courses of action:

1. \"The existence of evil proves that God doesn\'t exist. I won\'t seek Him out.\"
2. \"The existence of evil troubles me. Nevertheless I will open myself to the love of God.\"
3. \"The existence of evil proves that God is unworthy of my love; therefore I will not open myself to His love.\"

(1) has the advantage of logical completeness; it\'s also a little bleak for me, in that it shuts the door on God for good and never wants to look through it again.
(2) admits a huge gaping hole in its understanding; it\'s also the only approach that is willing to move forward past the pain and try to benefit from God.
(3) strikes me as radically self-defeating. \"Because I am wounded, I refuse to accept healing\" -- this is not a plan. If you suspect God exists, you should try accepting that you don\'t know why He does everything He does and be willing to accept the good you know He does do.
]]>Wed, 13 Sep 2006 12:15:49 -0400Picky-choosy religion, 3 views: Tris at 2006-09-13 09:44:06http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=248#8107
No.

No no no.

I\'ve never met Vincent, but from what I can tell, is a really nice guy. I don\'t believe he would every inflict grand suffering on me or mine, and I do believe that if he could prevent their suffering, he\'d do his best.

I don\'t worship him.

What would it say about me if I were willing to worship a being who cared less, just because it had more power?

God can not need forgiveness if he is to be at all worthy of our praise. He\'s supposed to be all knowing, all powerful. He can\'t make mistakes, and he knows the consequences of all of his action.

Either he can explain everything he has done, and how it was the absolute best course; or he is deliberately causing suffering for no good reason, and immediately throws away any chance of me worshipping him by choice.
]]>Wed, 13 Sep 2006 09:44:06 -0400Picky-choosy religion, 3 views: Joel P. Shempert at 2006-09-13 06:32:31http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=248#8106
I don\'t think we can afford to go into the history here, and I\'m not sure I know it well enough

Actually, I\'m personally interested in getting intlo the history; I\'d like to see what your counter at least in brief, to Ralph\'s other assertions is (you already gave a handy answer on Paul.). By the same token, I\'d like to hear more from Ralph. Specifically, Ralph, while I can dig most of what you say, I\'m skeptical about the idea of there being no precedent for \"Scripture as unerrant truth\" prior to the Protestant Reformation. Maybe it\'s just because, growing up Protestant, I was given a different spin on it, but it doesn\'t seem likely for the church to get to the point of dogmatism that it did in the pre-Reformation days without a strong belief in the unerring truth of Scripture. Hmm, it occurs to me that the Torah and its adherent\'s views on its authority also bears examining here--perhaps NinJ can enlighten us.

Incidentally, any sources for further reading that Ralph, Syndey, or anybody, really, can provide would be great, specifically on topics like \"Psst--they didn\'t even BELIEVE in inerrancy \'til Luther!\" and \"Hey, people actually debated on what parts of the Bible to include in the Puritan days--pass it on!\" This is especially if people don\'t want to expound further here.
]]>Wed, 13 Sep 2006 06:32:31 -0400Picky-choosy religion, 3 views: Jye Nicolson at 2006-09-13 03:46:17http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=248#8102
I\'m absolutely not engaging seriously with what you\'ve said so far (though I\'ve read it) - I was specifically posting with regards to mashup/Cthulu religion, and then your reply to my post. I\'m not really engaging in the great body of debate you\'re currently in, because it\'s a little silly for me to be debating points deep into theology when I question its very first assumptions!

That being said, I probably did use the word \"you\" a couple of times when I meant \"People of the Book\" or \"You religious folks\".

I do hope you can see my point that there\'s an extremely long chain of events that need to occur between identifying the existence of a given being and reasonably worshiping it as a deity (regardless of whether that being spans all things or is part of a crew on Mt Olympus). But that\'s absolutely off to the side of your main body of discussion.

That\'s why I\'m saying things like \"I don\'t even know who these things are, and I have no reason to trust those who claim to represent them.\" and not \"doesn\'t it worry you to be amongst those who add companions to God?\" ^_^
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